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[Question] Metal and Graphics Performance in Games
- Thread starter PowerBook-G5
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)This is absolutely incorrect. Vulkan — at least from what we saw in the preview docs, is Mantle. Just modified slightly.
I very much doubt that will happen. Windows gaming is how GPU vendors make money. There is a lot of extra optimisation in the Windows drivers to make particular games faster.
On the other side, porting between Vulkan/DX12/Metal looks to be a fairly simple task. The most tricky bit are the shaders. I hope there will be a SPIR-V interface for Metal.
Then I must've misread a bit about it. However, if Vulkan is only Mantle, then Metal is more robust version of it, with simplicity and ease of use. Because Mantle is the core of Metal, Vulkan, DirectX 12.
So in all fairness, Apple made proper job with Metal developing an API that will benefit for games and Pro Apps. It "can" be the best API of the lot.
So in all fairness, Apple made proper job with Metal developing an API that will benefit for games and Pro Apps. It "can" be the best API of the lot.
No, it's not that simple. Vulkan in fact is based on Mantle, but it is not Mantle. There are differences. DirectX 12 and Metal have not relation to Mantle or Vulkan whatsoever, except conceptional similarities.
Of course there is. Mantle is just functional base for those APIs. Even codes for Mantle and DirectX are different only by 3 first letters. Documentation is quite similar too. Nobody wants to say this, but Khronos used Mantle as a functional base for Vulkan, same for Microsoft.
From what I've seen Metal is very much Mantle-ish in idea. Of course they are different. That was the whole point of low-level API like Mantle, that you can make it bigger and better. The point was to get the functionality similar regardless of the platform you use.
From what I've seen Metal is very much Mantle-ish in idea. Of course they are different. That was the whole point of low-level API like Mantle, that you can make it bigger and better. The point was to get the functionality similar regardless of the platform you use.
Rubbish. Khronos and AMD have openly stated that Vulkan is based in part on Mantle. The important words here are in part. And you'll find that there are even clear parallels in code between OpenGL and older versions of DirectX – none of these mean they have decended from Mantle.
I have some problem with this way of thinking. Yes, Mantle was the first proper close-to-the metal API. And sure, Metal and DX12 take over many ideas from Mantle. But this doesn't mean that Mantle is the functional base of these other APIs. All of them operate with idea of command queues, resource views and monolithic pipeline states, but the reason for that is simply that these ideas are the most reasonable ones in an API that is supposed to be GPU-friendly. Besides, Nvidia had a number of experimental OpenGL extensions that were pursuing similar concepts long before Mantle.
The fact is that Metal, Mantle/Vulkan and DX12 are not only very similar in their core, but also quite different in how they implement the ideas. Metal seems to have the least amount of features of all three, but its very programmer friendly.
Well, I have read the Mantle spec and I have seen the Vulkan examples. From what i've seen, Vulkan copies the Mantle API and concepts 1-to-1 while adding some other stuff (like the Metal renderpass descriptors). But the immediate relationship of Mantle and Vulkan were obvious. There is no such relationship between mantle and Metal or DX12.
That is not what I wrote, and meant. I know, what I know. You know, what you know. Lets leave it here, and move on.
NVidia optimizes their driver code for one and all and sends the updated drivers to Apple to modify for OSX since Apple insists on being in control of the system drivers. It is not NVidia's fault that Apple doesn't give a crap on their end and doesn't do driver updates unless something is very broken. If Metal is used, I'd imagine at least half the problem would be eliminated (i.e. initial drivers would compare at least). Having good enough hardware is a whole different matter, but I'm mostly referring to the difference of running a given game on Windows and OSX on the same machine. Developers optimizing other aspects of game code for OSX is also another, matter although I'm not clear how much difference that might make for any individual game (i.e. other OS calls like loading levels on the fly or whatever).
I am afraid the reality can't work like this. Nvidia driver optimisation means that the driver detects that a particular games runs and then delegates it to a specialised driver module that has been developed by Nvidia to run that game faster. It replaces shaders, adjust resource access patterns and so on. It is not possible to do such optimisation 'for one and all' simply because the nature of the driver differs so much between the platforms. Nvidia can do it for Windows and Linux OpenGL, because they supply the entire GL implementation on those platforms. However, on OS X, Nvidia only delivers a driver module . It would take them a significant extra effort to port their optimisation profiles to OS X driver model, so I am highly doubtful that they do it.
Metal will alleviate much of the problem because it makes it very difficult for the developer to write slow drawing code. However, driver optimisations (esp shader replacements) will still be in place as long we have graphical APIs.
The whole closer to the Metal thing means that the driver itself is more simple. It is easier to write this drivers and they will perform well. Basically all the need for optimizations with these APIs moves to the 3d engine code. It is not necessarily easier write well performing code it is probably harder but the responsibility for optimizations does not lie with Nvidia/AMD/Intel which means that the part they do will show good results.
This will certainly help the whole driver situation everywhere.
How well engines do their part which they cannot just ignore remains to be seen but any performance issues will likely not be the gpu drivers fault anymore. That will certainly be good for OSX with their not so great drivers and their very infrequent updates.
The last two rows are the current situations. Second to last is with higher abstraction APIs OpenGL, DirectX11, and the last with closer to metal APIs. red = driver, yellow = engine, green = application code
The Image is from here.
This will certainly help the whole driver situation everywhere.
How well engines do their part which they cannot just ignore remains to be seen but any performance issues will likely not be the gpu drivers fault anymore. That will certainly be good for OSX with their not so great drivers and their very infrequent updates.
The last two rows are the current situations. Second to last is with higher abstraction APIs OpenGL, DirectX11, and the last with closer to metal APIs. red = driver, yellow = engine, green = application code
The Image is from here.
You're telling me that is the only type of optimizations NVidia ever does to their drivers? That doesn't sound plausible. Whatever updates they do do, Apple rarely implements any driver updates unless something is really broken. Apple shows little to no interest in graphics optmization. They have shown little interest in updating OpenGL on a timely basis. They have shown little interest in offering reasonably fast GPUs in general across their lines. They have done little to work with gaming companies or porters like Aspyr even when those companies have requested such cooperation.
In general, Apple has shown an utter disdain for gaming. I had always assumed this was because Steve Jobs had no interest in gaming and therefore Apple had no interest in gaming. Now it's hard to say why the patterns of overboard "thinness" and even backwards moves like switching iMacs to spinning hard drives as the default machine which only slows their performance and makes Macs look like they're heading in the wrong direction (and then charges a lot more to put the SSDs back as an "option" since their "options" are akin to "customization" and they charge accordingly). I can buy a 500GB 2.5" SSD for $175. Apple charges $300 to UPGRADE a 256 GB to 512GB (that includes the supposed cost savings of not paying for the 256GB drive) and $800 for a 1TB drive (this can be had for $375 so the "tax" goes up at a rate that is around DOUBLE the real world cost and again that's with removing the 256GB drive that you're now not paying for). This so-called Apple Tax has always made Apple look greedy and how much more so these days when Apple is the richest Tech company in this solar system? It's sad, really.
Ultimately, the question remains how much average difference there will between Windows and Mac games on the same machine with metal and whether it will lead to more or less conversions than we currently see.
Just to avoid misunderstanding, I am only responding to some parts of your posts. I generally agree with most other things you say.
No, but the game specific optimisations are among the main reason behind the superior 3D performance under Windows
They have updated their GPU drivers dozens of times over the last OS X updates. You need to keep track of driver versions.
True, but I fail to see how that really matters for game developers.
And yet they are among the first to design and develop a next-gen graphics API that is specifically targeted to game developers. As well as a vast collection of helper libraries that handle tasks from texture loading to 3D mesh animation. Something does not add up here. A company that doesn't care about gaming probably wouldn't invest significant time and resources into creating sophisticated instruments for game creation. The tools they offer with 10.11 almost make DirectX look old.
No, but the game specific optimisations are among the main reason behind the superior 3D performance under Windows
They have updated their GPU drivers dozens of times over the last OS X updates. You need to keep track of driver versions.
True, but I fail to see how that really matters for game developers.
And yet they are among the first to design and develop a next-gen graphics API that is specifically targeted to game developers. As well as a vast collection of helper libraries that handle tasks from texture loading to 3D mesh animation. Something does not add up here. A company that doesn't care about gaming probably wouldn't invest significant time and resources into creating sophisticated instruments for game creation. The tools they offer with 10.11 almost make DirectX look old.
Well, we'll see what happens. I hope Apple does begin to turn around that segment of their platform as it's been the mocking laugh child of the Windows world for ages (quite disconcerting to me as I can't stand Windows in all other respects from the horrible slowing down registry, disk drivers that badly fragment over time (and they say HFS+ is outdated!) and the endless malware that requires malware programs to constantly and unendingly be updated and scanning things to feel remotely safe, particularly if you bank/shop in Windows (at least to me; Windows would make me paranoid on that end if I used it for that). Yeah, "using" Windows and "living with" Windows are two different things to me. The Mac isn't totally superior to "use" on a given day per se, but it's totally superior to "live with" in the long run without those thins leading to misery sooner or later.